Honest opinion from someone who can beat AV on Ultra-Violence, but does not consider himself a Doom God?

I felt this map, despite exhilerating parts, failed to learn anything from the criticisms of SF2011. I concede the blank and undeveloped areas probably show this map is still unfinished, but the monster deployment was just a rehash of SF2011, with huge formations of monsters deployed in block after block.

In places, the map was genuinely exciting, but for the most part it's rooms and corridors crammed to the rafters with monsters and Cyberdemons. The entire first area was so off-putting I had to cheat to see what else was waiting. I will try the map again and look forward to seeing the finished version.

I'll also be playtesting random maps and posting my opinions here.

SF2011 was a disappointment as it took the basic elements of Hell Revealed (large numbers of powerful enemies and vast hordes of minions) then jettisoned the more sophisticated aspects that made HR enduringly popular, which was generally decent-to-intelligent use of monsters, room to run around and that weird je ne sais qua which defines the classic megawads. The Slaughterfest project is currently missing the point of why slaughter maps (and megawads in general) are popular.

If SF2012 wants to avoid a metaphorical thrashing in the newstuff, forums and archive reviews, I hope that my feedback - which is intended to be constructive and not insulting or demoralising - and the feedback given to SF2011 will at some point be taken into account.

EDIT: I just played Walk With Me In Hell and it was fantastic, so some mappers are going for Hell Revealed rather than SF2011 :)

Having played through a number of maps, I can already say this is light-years above SF2011.

Slaughtenstein needs a new name. I thought it was gonna be some Nazi shite. Instead it turned into one of the most intense, if frustrating maps I've played so far. At present the massed Revenant and Chaingunner attack round the castle's left side has got me stuck although I nearly beat it twice and kept forgetting to save. THAT's an indicator of how caught up the player becomes.

Some of the maps, Slaughtenstein included, go on for a long time. Generally though this is a really good set of maps which often make you feel like you were close to success before they kill you! (Maybe THAT's what Hell Revealed got so right!) As for the maps that just kill you hopelessly, fuck 'em, there are plenty of proper ones to play :D

Nevan said:
I've noticed playing this MAP17 online on Zandronum - if someone dies in the red key room it cannot again be entered.

unfortunately there are probably a serious number of areas like this throughout the wad, I don't think the maps were really tested in multiplayer. It's a good idea to keep track of them though so they can be ironed out.

I am unable to complete Slaughtenstein on Ultra Violence. There are just too many Revenants in one place - the most I've ever fought. It looks like three or four times as many as AV's Demonic Hordes and ten times as many as Firewalk With Me. Those were the two maps I used to consider impossibly Revenant-spammed.

In Demonic Hordes you can perform that annoying gaming guff of hiding in a room while the monsters fight it out. This turns a terrifying and unbelievably savage battle into something a novice could do. While I'm glad there is no "easy" solution in Salughtenstein, there should at least be another megasphere which the player can obtain without triggering the far wall. Or maybe I'm just crap.

Map 29, Degrassi: Another bizarre and unusual map from TimeofDeath. Everything about the map, from its discordant music to the weird layout tricks, confuses and unnerves the player. The start on UV is just so formidable, I wet my trousers. However on HMP the map is pointlessly easy, with a hundred chaingunners replaced by a pathetic handful of former humans. The map feels empty on HMP but at least I could make progress. The staircase that builds up feels glitchy and made the gameplay feel very jerky, but it did work properly and it's a brand new trick to me. On HMP I would suggest at least two to four more boxes of bullets and one to two boxes of shotgun shells - not all of us can shoot like James Bond. While this is not my favourite map and the music was driving me round the bend, this certainly stands out and you can definitely tell a TimeofDeath map, so kudos for stamping this megawad with a totally unique identity.

Map 32, Brookhaven Hospital: There should be a horror story accompanying this map in the text file. I would imagine Brookhaven is some kind of mental hospital. Since this is a TimeofDeath map you are immediately chucked into a strange and disorienting map which doesn't play like anyone else's. Personally, I don't take much notice of who makes what map so I don't often catch a mapper's style. You can't miss ToD's and while not all his maps are to my taste, he definitely has originality on his side. I notice the word "locked" appears on some doors while others simply refuse to open. I was a bit weary by this point so will need to play the map through again. There's a corridor with an obnoxious rocket trap which scared the shit out of me but I didn't get through it alive - I was noclipping around the map.

- fixed deep water HOM
- added that baron j4 suggested. It's still possible to force your way out there, but at least it's a pain in the ass now.

unrelated:

- the midi on map15 loops poorly due to several bars of silence in the beginning. I took a stab at removing them, but my midi editor botches RPN messages associated with tuning changes so I can't keep the wonky bends preserved if I try to edit it. Not a big deal at all really, but on the offchance someone has a better midi editor it could be fixed.

Brookhaven Hospital is a remake of a Silent Hill map. It already has a story.

In fact, maybe there should be a bit more discussion before one person arbitrarily writes a story for the whole megawad. Generic intermission text is one thing, but if you're going to be writing something that directly references the maps, you should really hear what the mappers have to say about it first. I have to say, if I'd contributed a map to the project and then found out MajorRawne was going to write a "short story" about it to go in the final wad, I would be pretty nonplussed right now.

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But anyway, I'm here to update you guys on the art stuff. Sorry to post and then vanish (yet again) earlier this month, but I had a couple of impending university deadlines to deal with, so essentially I ran out of spare time for a while. I did say I might try making a map, and in fact I did try out a couple of things that were kind interesting, but really there was nothing too special -- and obviously by this point I have clearly missed the deadline, so if I did make something, I would submit it to sf2013 :) So, no maps from me, just artwork hopefully.

And on the subject of the art, I haven't got much to report, except that I'm still working on it and still intending to get it done in time for release. However, you may have noticed by now that I am not the fastest or most reliable of workers, so if I'm holding you guys up at all, please say so. And if everything else is ready before the art stuff, feel free to skip it and just go straight to release.

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I have to say, sf2012 is indeed much better than sf2011. I still can't stand Fourtress or Bane's Atrium (sorry guys), but the overall standard is high enough that these maps don't seem as bad as they did on their own. I hadn't played any of them before I downloaded "version A", but Ribbiks' maps are excellent. And surprisingly, Phml's maps are actually even more impressive than his sf2011 ones. Amazing stuff.

@ Grainofsalt
In the end, I guess this part hasn't been discussed much (maybe it's kind of irrelevant), in the end my view is someone has offered to do it and I feel that I will give MajorRawne the chance to do it, it's not like we will simply accept it blindly. There will be reviews of it and amendments where needed of course. Hopefully this will be done well and not offensive to the people whose maps proceed after the intermission texts. Or maybe I'm to soft :P
No rush at the moment about the artwork, we are still waiting for kyka's revised version of map07, as he is busy with tnt2 stuff there I don't think it's right to be too pushy so that will give you a good couple of weeks if not longer to finish the artwork. Btw really looking forward to seeing it :)

The whole point of my contribution is self-explanatory. The intermission texts will be about the megawad as a whole, not about individual maps - unless of course I am asked to do so. Give me time to get something written. There won't be any short stories, that would require too much co-operation to avoid stepping on an author's vision for his own map.

I've been banging my head against a wall trying to beat Anathema v.7 for about a week now... I've gotten the red key and played up to the yellow key, but am finding myself fatigued by the trial and error so I'm just going to give my feedback now after running through the whole thing IDDQD: it's a brilliant level that's a bit too tough for me.

It's steeped in a cold, gritty atmosphere with a keen layout and excellent architecture, never once feeling repetitive despite having consistent themes, textures and only about four different colors. It's your best effort by far Ribbiks, although the sheer scope and brutality of it is leading me to prefer something like Electric Wizard in the end. I especially liked the crude hell vibe from the blue key areas, and your intermittent spats of curved architecture are always well appreciated. I'm still shocked you put this whole thing together before the end of the year... Only weird thing I saw was in the yellow key room, you have some rectangles that are lighter than the shadows they're in which looks odd. Oh, and the lift to the pre-blue key path was way too hard to notice... it really needs a light by it or some glowing bars.

My biggest issue gameplay wise is that the map demands a lot from the player. Not only is every encounter extremely deadly, but walking into some of them with no cell (like the baron hallway or the entire red key battle) means that you're pretty much finished unless you have some godlike skills. In fact, the entire red key battle was a huge headache for me, as I had no chance in hell at doing it without some heavy save abuse since I needed to get at the cell behind the HKs or risk them flooding the stairs. And then the mancs with the lost souls and the imps with their AV guardians... continuous salt in the wound as I tried to find something to get me above 30 health.

None of it is bad gameplay, it's just not preferable to me as I feel like I'm trying to do a TAS whenever I play, which definitely tells me to bump it down some difficulty levels. So that's where my review basically ends. I could go on and on about the architecture though, my goodness is it astounding. One of my favorite things about it is how you can see glimpses into previous rooms... always adds a lot of cohesiveness to the level. A goddamn worthy MAP30, the best non-IOS one I've ever played. Speaking of which, I might fiddle around with some photoshop as there needs to be something more fitting than Romero to end this excruciating odyssey.

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Oh and TimeofDeath, if you could add me to the additional list of credits, that'd be nice (since I worked on the end of DHlandia). Also, if no one has claimed it, I'd like to make the easier difficulty settings for darkreaver's maps as GRB pointed out there currently is none for them.

thanks for the kind words dobu, I did spend quite a bit of time on the visuals/atmosphere, so I'm glad you liked!

I used the whole 'final map of a slaughter megawad' thing to justify the high difficulty, but I don't think it ever crosses over into unfair. I'm guessing you're pretty burnt out of the map at this point, but I would've recommended from the getgo to try HMP and save yourself the headache :)

I think the very last area in map 15 is a little too crazy. You are almost guaranteed to be hurt by splash of every single cyb shot and you can easily get blocked by them which may mostly result in suicidal BFGing attempts. You are after over 15 minutes of playing if going for max, and hilariously difficult area as the very last one is a major put-off. I'd probably not keep a single cyb there and think of something different, like each switch teleporting in avs at different parts of section, or something.

In map 12 make sure that megasphere won't require avjump in lower difficulties than uv, that alone will make drastic difficulty decrease. Also, that last encounter is somewhat awkward (in uv).

Speaking of which, I might fiddle around with some photoshop as there needs to be something more fitting than Romero to end this excruciating odyssey.

Some maps use romero head which is visible (I think ToD's split open is the only one). A different sprite might not be too indicative for players to shoot it.

j4rio said:
I think the very last area in map 15 is a little too crazy...

I actually agree with you on it, it wasn't that fun to play but I was determined to use the maze. The AVs might be entertaining, but maybe I should just trash that whole section? The level could just end after the first area. And I suppose that's a good call on the IoS.

Eh, you decide whether to tune it up or remove, since you made it after all. I'd scale it up at least twice if you want to keep current monster placement (it might work if there's room to breath). Also, I'd add 6 keys requiring switch next that teleporter which grants access to secret by for example lowering it just for the hell of it (lowers sector by 32/24 units).

Played it online a bit (up to map10), noticed only few bugs/oddities.
map03: deep water effect looks really broken in latest gzdoom/zandronum, like as if the side textures were missing. It's probably easy to fix.
Online-only bugs: the plasmarifle trap seems to be unreachable if someone dies there without pressing the button, rendering the map impossible to finish (you can't get RK). Another way to break the map is as follows - one person takes the red key, while the other one stays inside the main area. Now if the keybearer dies, the others are stuck inside the main room 4 FORVEVER.

map04: no red key at all in the map (checked in doombuilder). Maybe i'm missing something, but so far the only way to finish the map seems to be in making an av jump over the yellow bars.

map05: something strange with textures in the room behind the red door - areas around torches look pitch black with gl renderer, and brown with software. Both look out of place. I've also noticed the same thing in map25 while idclev'ing randomly.

Everything else up to map10 seems to play absolutely fine. We didn't die too much, so maybe missed some possibly non-coop-friendly traps though.

EDIT:
map11: No idea how to get secret in sector 108, seems like a mapping error. Also textures alignment looked strange in one spot, forgot where it is, i'll check again later.

map14: in the first room there are viles in the red walls, additional coop viles make them all stuck and easy to kill. Also linedef 1646 has a generalized action attached to it, which seems to do nothing (possibly a leftover from an earlier version).